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ATM Machines Enhance Customer Service

By Adriana Noton


If a bank operates a network of ATM machines for the convenience of its customers this can boost its standing among its competitors and demonstrate its concern for customer care. The financial institution that has a large number of these machines displays its own name prominently in streets and shopping centers in addition to helping its customers. The presence of these cash dispensers relives the burden of work on branches of the financial institution.

The cash dispensers now provide many more services than the withdrawal of cash or showing the balance on an account. A person may use an ATM to deposit money and checks, print a bank statement or transfer money between accounts. More services are becoming available, sometimes including payment of bills, foreign currency and management of the bank account.

Security of the account can be assured by the use of the latest coding systems. If the ATM has a problem in identifying a customer it may swallow the card or send a message that blocks its use until further notice. Where a card is sometimes put to unusual levels of use this may be detected by a machine and alerts may be issued.

Over the course of time dishonest people have invented various means of defrauding customers who use ATMs. They have done this by attaching false keyboards to machines to make a note of the PIN as it is entered. They have used cameras to see the number that the customer has entered, and in some cases gadgets have been fixed onto the dispensers to read the card as the customer tries to push it into the ATM.

Security methods have been developed to resist these types of crime. This has involved innovative techniques to protect the machines. Methods have been devised to alert the bank to any attempt to attach gadgets to the front of a cash dispenser. New identification methods have been developed to replace the PIN, for example iris recognition or palm print readers.

Security has to extend to the physical protection of staff filling the machines with banknotes, as these can be a target for thieves. Also robbers have attempted to steal money by removing a whole ATM, using a vehicle to smash a hole in the wall around the machine. Security concerns therefore need to go wider than protection of PIN numbers.

The task of managing the ATMs requires constant monitoring to make sure that they are working properly and alerting staff to any problems when they are not functioning in the normal way. When a machine is out of order this may be very inconvenient for a customer who cannot obtain cash or retrieve the card that has been inserted into the dispenser.

The customers of any financial institution may live across a wide geographical area and deal in different currencies, languages and time zones. The need for careful management of the cash dispensers and implementation of security methods is therefore growing all the time.

Although most ATMs are found in the street outside banks, at petrol stations or in shopping centers, they are also placed inside the premises of a financial institution. When located on the premises of a bank they often provide a wider range of functions than those available in the street and are intended to relieve the workload of bank employees and shorten the queues of customers.

ATM machines are a part of everyday life and will continue to be indispensable to customers in spite of the development of internet banking. Customers are increasingly reluctant to attend the branch of their bank just to collect cash and these cash dispensers offer a quick and convenient service.




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